Cleveland Hires Manny Acta
The Cleveland Indians’ managerial hunt ended on Sunday, as they hired former Washington Nationals skipper Manny Acta. Acta will replace Eric Wedge, who in six seasons as manager of the Indians compiled a .495 winning percentage and reached the playoffs once (in 2007).
Acta managed for two and a half years in Washington, managing teams with very little in terms of talent. Over his tenure, the Nationals played putrid .385 ball, including a 59 win season in 2008 and a 26-61 record at the time of his firing in 2009. Despite his poor record, Acta has a fantastic reputation around the game with young players. As Cleveland enters the Manny Acta era, they will need these talents as they attempt to build around established players like Grady Sizemore and Shin-Soo Choo with prospects like Matt LaPorta and Carlos Carrasco.
Other candidates for the job included former Mets and Chiba Lotte Marines manager Bobby Valentine, Indians AAA manager Torey Lovullo, and Dodgers hitting coach Don Mattingly. Valentine is the only other candidate with ML managerial experience (Mattingly has never managed a professional team). Valentine reached one World Series with the Mets in 2000 but has an otherwise unimpressive record, with a .510 career winning percentage, and was ousted as part of the Steve Phillips era in New York. With Cleveland in the middle of a rebuilding period, he may not have fit well with their current personnel.
The most interesting thing about Acta besides his reputation with young players is his affinity for statistical analysis. In an interview with Squawking Baseball after the 2007 season, Acta told of his disdain for the sacrifice bunt early in games, and how Baseball Prospectus was among his favorite baseball reading.
More importantly, though, Acta’s openness towards statistics will not lead to tension between the manager and the front office. Mark Shapiro and his staff certainly are not stuck in the dark ages with regards to new forms of analysis. Would a manager like Bobby Valentine or Don Mattingly have conflicted with the front office in terms of player acquisitions, or perhaps on in-game strategies? It’s hard to say for sure. Acta, however, seems to have the perfect profile for a team looking to rebuild and willing to use advanced analyses.
Although Cleveland has pieces to build around, they do not appear to have the talent of a competing team as of yet. With the hiring of Manny Acta, the Indians have somebody who has both a great reputation among baseball men and an appreciation for the analytical part of the game that has created winners in Oakland and Boston, and is currently turning a franchise around in Seattle. Acta won’t bring the Indians to contention by himself, but he’s the right man to guide the ship.
Print This Post
For a guy who has a statistical reputation, the guy did not manage at all by the stats. Nothing in sabermetrics indicated that it was a good idea to start Austin Kearns and his .195 BA ahead of Elijah Dukes. Those stats should have told him that it was a terrible idea to give 28 PA to Alex Cintron. Those stats should have told him that Joel Hanrahan was not fit for the closer role. Those stats should have told him that defense is part of the game and that it is a terrible idea to ignore it. The guy is overmatched as a manager. Cleveland fans will realize that within 2 months.
I agree, but to play devil’s advocate, it wasn’t like Bowden was making Jack-Z-like acquisitions for the skipper to deploy. Acta didn’t shop for the groceries. Playing Kearns was pretty inexcusable, but there was some thought that he may play well enough to return some value. Clearly, that didn’t work.
Hanrahan ultimately proved (good?) enough to acquire Tony Plush, and I don’t think that, in light of production gained from him so far vis a vis performance of Milledge and the arsonist in Pittsburgh, it was terrible judgment to continue running him out there. There may be some merit to this in light of the fact that he ran a .392 BABIP for the season (I don’t recall what it was before he left DC). Maybe Manny thought it would regress. But Julian Tavarez is a pretty good alternative, right? 6.94 BB/9!!
I think my larger point is that it would have been nice to see Acta in DC during a period of time where the front office was competent.
Totally agree with PM. As one of a handful of Nats fans, I can attest to the horrible job he did. He actually had Kearns in CF in a game I saw. He also screwed up a double switch where he actually put the pitcher hitting NEXT instead of later (not sure if there was some statistical reason for it, but it seems suboptimal). Good luck cleveland…you’re gonna need it.
Watching Manny for two and a half years left this Nats fan unimpressed. His teams were never ready to play at the start of the season, and obviously lacked leadership. Manny preferred to “lead by example” which for him meant showing no emotion, standing stoically like a tobacco store indian (possible nickname in Cleveland, no?). His bullpen management was often confusing or just plain weird, and is too stubborn to order a steal or a bunt even if the situation dictates it (that’s the best case scenario. Many suggested he wasn’t even paying attention to the game.)
Not really sure what you wanted him to do. Tough to win with 2 or 3 good players and 20 or so minor leaguers on the team.
I’m not hating on him because he didn’t win (no one could have with those Nats teams). As a manager, you still need to have your team ready to play. Too many mental mistakes, errors, and half-hearted play. A good manager is one who knows how to get the most out of what he has. Manny did not.
Bad players make mental mistakes and errors. Nats had plenty of those. Half-hearted play…would you be trying hard in that situation? How could you possibly motivate that group?
Neil
Are we talking about pure mental mistakes or simply bad baseball played by bad players?
Hey, without the Nats, we would have no way to quantify “replacement” level players!
Lots of Nats fans were very upset about Manny failing to steal more with his crew of sub-70% stolen base players he managed, and his failure to bunt early in games gave the team a dead atmosphere. Just not aggressive enough about running into outs. On top of all this, his bullpen management became atrocious after being excellent in 2007. Don’t give me none of this stuff about his first closer blowing out his arm (after he was not traded at his peak value), his second closer was traded for a dynamic and exciting Emilio Bonifacio, and his most reliable middle guys (Ayala, Rivera, Schroder) regressed.
Good thing Manny is Sabermetrically appreciative, or else his team could have done worse than a 0.385 winning % over 2+ years.
Also, even though Boston may have an appreciation for Sabermetrics, do they ever apply it to personnel decisions? Oakland, although market-challenged and pretty impressive in the early-mid 2000s, hasn’t finished above .500 in three years, so I don’t think Oakland qualifies as a “winner.”
No matter how statistically inclined a team is, it will not win without good major league talent, good minor league talent and development, and some luck.
If Oakland or Cleveland had Boston’s payroll…
“No matter how statistically inclined a team is, it will not win without good major league talent, good minor league talent and development, and some luck.”
This is probably the larger point, isn’t it? Best case scenario for the Tribe, I’d guess, is that the players develop and Manny doesn’t do anything to get in the way. Let Choo, Sizemore and LaPorta solidify the outfield and find a 4th guy to sub for LaPorta when you have a late inning lead. Don’t screw up Santana. Don’t screw up Rondon. The difficult thing — or one of them — is determining at what point a manager messed something up and at what point the player never had it in him.
I never liked how passive Manny was in DC. He didn’t have to be fire and brimstone, but at some point you visibly care about results and don’t resign yourself to a result because “that’s baseball”.
Best case scenario is that Manny (and his staff) is the type of manager who teaches and helps develop players to reach their peak potential.
“Would a manager like Bobby Valentine or Don Mattingly have conflicted with the front office in terms of player acquisitions, or perhaps on in-game strategies?”
Wouldn’t the Indians front office need a guy like this? I’m sorry if it disrupts the group-think here, but the Indians haven’t really been that successful with their ‘advanced analysis’.
Even advanced analysis can’t help injuries.
Did the Indians really lose that many more wins to injuries than other teams, or is that a comment out of your ass? They had issues with pitching from day 1. Even if you give that team Jake Westbrook back, they still lose 90 games. Where is this advanced analysis when it comes to the bullpen?
The Nats did not have little talent. Plenty of people were predicting a decent season for the Nats including PECOTA (77 wins). The Nats finished 26-61 with Acta and a more respectable 33-42 with Jim Riggleman. That is a huge difference despite similar roster talent.
No team with Adam Dunn on it’s roster will ever win anything.
No NL team with Adam Dunn on its roster will ever win anything.
No NL team or AL team with a restricted payroll will win with Adam Dunn.
Actually there is no statistical significance between those two win percentages over that number of games played. But the PECOTA projection is an interesting point. I feel we could learn a lot from projections that turn out wrong.
What is it about Manny Acta that makes players want to play like shit?
Or, what is it about Jim Riggleman (…) that makes players want to play well?
Sometimes you just get bored of losing.
Agreed. The Nats haven’t ever had little or no talent, as many have argued. They have never put together a good team, but they’re by no means a 100 loss team. In 2008, PECOTA projected they’d finish 72-90. They finished 59-102. In 2009, they were projected to finish 78-84. They finished 59-103. Acta finished with a record of 85-163 – 29 games worse than the 114-135 record PECOTA predicted.
I’m not familiar if there have been any articles examining managers that are successful at outperforming expectations, but Manny Acta certainly isn’t a manager who gets the most out of his teams.